*The flour should have a protein content between 13.4-13.6%Note: Dough (20 ounces) is for a 14" pizza with a corresponding thickness factor of 0.12992; bowl residue compensation = 1.5%

The amount of yeast specified is for a two-day cold fermentation. For a 3-day cold fermentation, try 0.25% IDY.

Please let us know how things turn out.

Peter

Pete,

What prompted your assumption that Papa John's flour has a protein content of between 13.4% - 13.6%, and not, say closer to 13%? For example, a flour with a protein content of 13.1% exceeds the protein content of regular bread flours, and is sufficiently high enough to qualify as "high protein", as stated in PJ's marketing. Thanks in advance!

What prompted your assumption that Papa John's flour has a protein content of between 13.4% - 13.6%, and not, say closer to 13%? For example, a flour with a protein content of 13.1% exceeds the protein content of regular bread flours, and is sufficiently high enough to qualify as "high protein", as stated in PJ's marketing. Thanks in advance!

WarEagle09,

You are correct that a flour with a protein content of 13.1% would qualify as a high protein flour. In my case, I came to the 13.4-13.6% number after analyzing the PJ Nutrition Facts for the dough used to make PJ's breadsticks and its 14" pizzas. In particular, I looked at the Dietary Fiber nutrient. As you may know if you have read back into this thread, PJ supplements the flour it uses to make its dough with wheat starch. As it so happens, there is no Dietary Fiber in basic wheat starch (see, for example, the nutrition information provided at https://store.nexternal.com/cbfi2000/storefront/wheat-starch-p14.aspx). There is a form of wheat starch called "resistant starch" that is quite high in Dietary Fiber but if PJ were using that particular form of wheat starch, as I understand it PJ would be required to state such use under FDA rules and regulations. I have not seen them do this. Assuming that PJ is not using resistant wheat starch means that just about all of the Dietary Fiber comes from the flour used to make the pizza dough (there is also Dietary Fiber in the dried yeast but it is very small at the single pizza level, and especially low for a dough that is to cold ferment for 5-8 days).

If you are asking me if I can rule out a flour with say, 13.1% protein, the answer is no. Nutrition Facts are difficult to analyze to begin with, and there are associated rounding factors that would make it extremely difficult to distinguish in the analysis between a flour with a protein content of 13.1% and one with a protein content of 13.4-13.6%. Originally, PJ made huge claims that it was using a high protein, high gluten flour. When making changes to dough formulations, companies like PJ like to make those changes slowly and gradually so that their customers don't notice the changes. On that basis, going to something like 13.4-13.6% would serve that purpose. But I can't prove it.

Since my last post in this thread on the Papa John’s Mega Chocolate Chip Cookie, Norma and I have been collaborating offline in an effort to try to reverse engineer and clone that cookie. Norma had indicated an interest in possibly offering such a product for sale at market. Since I had never tried to reverse engineer a cookie before, I thought that it would be fun and interesting to try to do so. So, I rolled up my sleeves and went to work. After a few tries, I believe that I have come up with a PJ clone chocolate chip cookie dough formulation that Norma tells me is a very good one. She had purchased a couple of the PJ Mega Chocolate Chip Cookies from PJ, so she had the benefit of being able to compare the various clone versions with the real thing. In due course, I expect that Norma will share her experiences with us as well as offer up some useful tips, insights, and photos.

The following discussion and analysis attempts to provide background information on the PJ Mega Chocolate Chip Cookie and also the measures I took to try to come up with a credible PJ clone chocolate chip cookie dough formulation. In this exercise, I relied primarily on information that was provided to me over the phone by Connie at PJ, and Nutrition Facts as given toward the end of the PJ Mega Chocolate Chip review article at http://www.theimpulsivebuy.com/wordpress/2013/10/14/review-papa-johns-mega-chocolate-chip-cookie/. I also did a considerable amount of research on chocolate chip cookies and cookie dough recipes, and ingredients used to make chocolate chip cookies. I also looked at the ingredients lists and Nutrition Facts for over a few dozen brands of chocolate chip cookies and refrigerated chocolate chip cookie doughs sold at several of the supermarkets near where I live.

The PJ Mega Chocolate Chip Cookie. By way of background, the PJ Mega Chocolate Chip Cookie comprises these basic ingredients, which I have listed in order by their predominance by weight: Semi-sweet chocolate chips; bleached/malted/enriched flour; a 0 Trans Fat, palm-oil/soybean oil-based margarine; sugar; brown sugar; pasteurized whole eggs; double-acting leavening; salt; artificial flavor; and caramel color. It is important to note the specific mention of “margarine”. That is important because, by law, any product called “margarine” must contain at least 80% fat (and about 20% water). So, this rules out so called “spreads” or “margarine spreads” or “light” margarines or products similarly named. In fact, in my research on this matter, researchers and experts on chocolate chip cookies specifically advised against using margarine spreads because their water content is too high and will make the cookie dough batter too wet.

My initial instinct was to try to find chocolate chip cookies or doughs using the same ingredients as used by PJ. My hope was that I would be able to identify brands of those ingredients that we could find at retail and use. In this vein, I had read somewhere that McDonald’s made soft-baked chocolate chip cookies that were considered very good. After some searching, I was able to find the ingredients list and Nutrition Facts for the McDonald’s soft-baked chocolate chip cookie at http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/product_nutrition.dessertsshakes.201.chocolate-chip-cookie.html (click on the Nutrition button). Much to my surprise, I discovered that the McDonald’s ingredients were very similar to what PJ uses. The McDonald’s chocolate chip cookies are smaller (33 grams) than the PJ cookie slices (39 grams) but when I scaled up the McDonald’s Nutrition Facts to correspond to the 39-gram cookie weight, the adjusted Nutrition Facts were very close to the PJ Nutrition Facts.

Unfortunately, the information given to me by PJ and the McDonald’s information did not tell me how much of each ingredient to use. Also, I discovered that many of the specific ingredients used by McDonald’s (and also by PJ) are not available at the retail level. They are available at the foodservice and professional users level, but not at the retail level. At least I could not find them after considerable research. However, as noted below, I believe that I was able to come up with brands of the ingredients to use to make a credible PJ cookie clone, although I had to do a lot of calculations to match the nutritional information for those particular brands to the PJ Nutrition Facts.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Recipes. In order to get an idea as to quantities of ingredients to use, I decided to look at various chocolate chip cookie dough recipes. And, since the predominant ingredient used by PJ for its cookie was chocolate chips, this meant that any chocolate cookie dough recipe that I would study would have to have chocolate chips as the dominant ingredient. I suspected that the source of any such recipe was most likely to be someone who sells chocolate chips. And, that is what I found. It was companies like Ghirardelli and Nestle and Hershey. However, since I had concluded that the closest match to the semi-sweet chocolate chips used by PJ were those sold by Ghirardelli, I decided to study the Ghirardelli chocolate chip cookie dough recipe as given at http://www.ghirardelli.com/recipes-tips/recipes/chocolate-chip-cookies.

To study the Ghirardelli chocolate chip cookie dough recipe, I first had to convert it to baker’s percent format. In so doing, I assumed that a cup of flour measured out by volume weighed 130 grams. I also excluded the nuts. Once I calculated the baker’s percents for the various ingredients, I was able to see how the ingredients lined up in the pecking order. As it so happened, all but one of the ingredients (eggs) was in the same pecking order as the ingredients used by PJ. The next step was to scale down the weight of the cookie dough produced using the Ghirardelli recipe (about 41 ounces) to an amount that approximated the unbaked weight of a PJ cookie. At first, I used 13 ounces, on the assumption that the cookie would lose about an ounce during baking (Connie at PJ told me that a PJ cookie weighed around 12 ounces), but it later turned out from Norma’s test bakes that 12 ounces was a better weight to use. Such a weight would result in a final bake weight of somewhere between 11.4-11.8 ounces. If one converts eight cookie slices at 39 grams, one gets 11 ounces.

Unfortunately, the nutritional information for the scaled down amount of the Ghirardelli chocolate chip cookie dough did not match the PJ Nutrition Facts. My calculations of that nutritional information were based on the ingredients that I identified as being usable to make the PJ clone cookie (discussed more fully below). I also substituted a double acting leavening agent for the baking soda in the Ghirardelli recipe.

In order to come up with a PJ clone cookie dough formulation that matched the PJ Nutrition Facts, I had to do a large number of calculations where I changed ingredient quantities on an iterative basis until the numbers matched up. This was a brute force method that was also time consuming, especially since there were eight different nutrients that had to be matched up (Sugars, Sodium, Dietary Fiber, Protein, Cholesterol, Total Fat, Sat Fat and Total Carbohydrates). The chocolate chips alone that PJ uses contain all eight of those nutrients. And there was a lot of overlap of those nutrients among the various ingredients. By the time I was done, I had 15 pages of calculations, in many cases on both sides of the pages. But, even then, I had no idea as to how the PJ clone dough formulation would perform in a real setting since I was basing my numbers on the particular ingredients that I would recommend be used. But my final numbers were very close to the PJ Nutrition Facts. This intrigued me because I wondered if a product that meets the Nutrition Facts of another product will perform in the same way, if at all. In this case, based on what Norma reported, the answer seems to be yes.

What helped me immensely in my calculations was the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html. Although many of the cookie dough ingredients are not in that tool, I commandeered the expanded dough calculating tool anyway and usurped some of the entries (which I later renamed during final editing) to do the weight calculations as I changed the values of the inputs. At the end of the process, I did the weight-to-volume conversions manually. I would not have been able to come up with the different versions of the cookie dough formulation without that tool.

Recommended Retail Ingredients. What follows is my recommendations of ingredients to use to make the PJ clone Mega Chocolate Chip Cookie. All of the ingredients are readily available at retail.

Flour. Starting with the flour, I would use any basic bleached and malted and enriched all-purpose flour. I cannot say what type of flour PJ is actually using because the PJ Nutrition Facts do not provide any reliable insights on that matter. I would say that the General Mills Gold Medal bleached all-purpose flour is a good choice (http://www.amazon.com/Gold-Medal-Purpose-Bleached-Enriched/dp/B005EOTMOM/ref=ase_pizzamaking-20/103-6714061-5151001). Norma successfully used the Shurfine bleached/malted/enriched all-purpose flour. I have read that a 50/50 blend of cake flour (bleached) and a stronger flour such as a bread flour (presumably what Jacques Torres, the chocolatier, uses) will also work but that is not a blend that has been tested in this project. I estimate the protein content for such a blend to be around 10.4%. Many of the chocolate chip cookies I saw at my local supermarkets appeared to be using softer flours that usually are not malted.

Margarine. For the margarine, I was able to only find one product that seems to come close to the margarine that PJ uses for its Mega Chocolate Chip Cookie. It is a new product from Walmart. In fact, it is so new that I wasn’t able to find anything on that product online, even on the Walmart website. The product itself contains palm oil and palm kernel and soybean oil and is also a 0 Trans Fat product. It contains 80% vegetable oil. The margarine is sold under the Great Value brand, in stick form, and the box shows a rolling pin with the words “Great for Baking” within the image of the rolling pin. Below the rolling pin are images of chocolate chip cookies. Better yet is the price of the GV margarine. In my local Walmart, the price is $1.36 for four sticks (one pound). There are other products that include palm oil and palm kernel, but the ones I saw in my local supermarkets were less than 80% vegetable oil.

Brown Sugar. For brown sugar, I suggest using dark brown sugar. The ingredients list for the PJ cookie does not specify either light brown sugar or dark brown sugar, only brown sugar. However, since PJ uses caramel color, which is an ingredient that can be purchased from several sources (e.g., http://www.amazon.com/McCormick-Food-Coloring-Caramel-16-Ounce/dp/B008OGD38I/ref=ase_pizzamaking-20/103-6714061-5151001), using a dark brown sugar will provide some coloration of the baked cookie if caramel color is unavailable. Also, as Norma pointed out to me, real vanilla also contains caramel color. While on the matter of vanilla, the chocolate chips that PJ uses contain artificial vanilla (vanillin), and PJ also uses artificial vanilla as one of its lesser flavoring ingredients. The Ghirardelli and Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips both contain real vanilla; the Hershey semi-sweet chocolate chips contain artificial vanilla.

Further to the matter of the brown sugar, Norma found that she could replace a small amount of light brown sugar with molasses to make it more like dark brown sugar. As is well known, dark brown sugar contains more molasses than light brown sugar (6.5% vs. 3.5%), and brown sugar in general can contain up to 10% molasses. In the absence of dark brown sugar, one might use white sugar and replace 10% of it with molasses. The presence of molasses in the cookie dough serves another purpose. It is an acidic ingredient and is necessary to react with the baking soda in the leavening agent to start the production of carbon dioxide. That process starts as soon as the dough is mixed.

Leavening Agent. For the double acting leavening agent, I suggest that the Clabber Girl double acting leaven be used (http://www.clabbergirl.com/consumer/products/clabber_girl/clabber_girl_baking_powder.php). It is sold in just about every supermarket. Since that product is very similar to what PJ is using in terms of its constituent ingredients, I would not substitute another product. Other products, even just plain baking soda, may work but I believe that PJ uses a double acting leaven because their dough is most likely frozen for later use, and the other leavening ingredients (sodium aluminum sulfate—or SAS--or sodium acid pyrophosphate--or SAPP--and monocalcium phosphate) are needed at the actual time of baking. (An alternative to the Clabber Girl baking powder is the Fleischmann's baking powder as discussed at http://www.clabbergirl.com/pdf/Fleischmanns.pdf but that product is sold mostly to professionals and in large quantities.)

PJ Clone Formulation. The PJ clone chocolate chip cookie dough formulation that I ended up is set forth below. As mentioned previously, I used 12 ounces of cookie dough. That is the amount that one should use in the baking pan. Since cookie dough can stick to just about everything, I used a bowl residue compensation of 10%. As for the pan itself, based on photos that Norma provided to me, it appears that the pan, which is a round disposable foil aluminum pan, is roughly an 8” pan, with a top dimension of about 8”, a bottom dimension of about 7 ¼” and a depth of about 1”. The closest pan that I could find to the PJ pan is the one shown at http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/748398021/6_7_8_5_9_inch/showimage.html. I have no idea as to where one can purchase such a pan. However, I think any pan with comparable dimensions should work. Since Norma used the PJ pan for her experiments, she should be able to provide details on baking methods and temperatures and times, and final baked weights for her clone cookies, both for her home oven and her deck oven at market.

Thickness Factor. I did not make an attempt to calculate a precise thickness factor value for the PJ clone chocolate cookie dough formulation, but a rough value is around 0.27.

It will be apparent that using a decent scale will be a big help in using the clone cookie dough formulation as set forth below. However, I did make an attempt to convert several of the ingredients to volume measurements as best I could, and have so noted those conversions.

Thank you very much for posting your detailed write up on what you had to do to clone a PJ cookie! That was a lot of work. I am going to try and offer your PJ clone cookie at market. Thanks so much for all of the help. I enjoyed learning with you about what it takes to make a PJ clone cookie.

These are the photos of what a PJ cookie looks like in the disposable pan and the cutter PJ uses to cut the baked cookie in the disposable aluminum pan. The first two photos are from my second visit to PJ. The next photos are from my first visit to PJ to see how PJ baked their cookie. I wanted to be able to see how PJ baked their cookie before I tried to make a PJ clone cookie from Peter's PJ clone formulation.

I did contact PJ to ask about the ingredient list and nutrition facts and was send both of them but my email had a disclaimer about that information.

I will post more tomorrow on how the bake went using Peter PJ clone formulation with photos at market. I am going to make another PJ clone cookie tonight for my daughter that her coworkers want to try the PJ clone cookie. I do have photos of how I went about trying to bake a PJ clone cookie at home different times if anyone is interested.

As always there were a few attempts until the PJ clone cookies turned out good.

These are the photos from the Peter's PJ clone cookie from this morning. The photos show what the PJ cookie batter looked like, how I baked the PJ clone cookie and what it looked like after the cookie was baked. I had been using Peter's PJ clone formulation with a bowl residue compensation of 8% so that is also what I used when mixing this time. There was not a lot of leftover batter from all the sticking issues so that is why Peter upped the bowl residue compensation to 10%.

I don't know about using the full amount of Clabbler Girl baking powder, but this time I only used 0.80 grams of the Clabber Girl instead of the 1.16 grams I was supposed to use. The only reason I changed the amount of the Clabber Girl baking powder was because a few times the batter reached the top screen and wanted to stick a little to the top screen. If anyone reads this remember I am using a little different bowl residue compensation so the value of the baking powder I used would not be someone should use with Peter's PJ formulation.

As can be seen I do use two screens with parchment paper under the disposable PJ aluminum pan. One screen is on the bottom, then parchment paper, the disposable pan and another screen on top. At market and at home I used a different baking screen on top, but from today’s bake it does not seem to matter what kind of screen is used.

I also changed to dark brown sugar today.

I have tried to get my bake time down for Peter's PJ clone cookies (more in line with the bake time of around 7 minutes at PJ), but so far I have not been successful at home or even at market with higher bake temperatures. Tonight the PJ clone cookie was baked at 495 degrees F on the middle rack of my home oven on a baking stone. The bake time was 10 minutes 15 seconds. I took off the top screen so the top would brown a little more in the last minute of the bake. If someone tries Peter's PJ clone formulation they should watch how the edges brown and the top of the cookie near the end of the bake. The bake weight of the PJ clone cookie was 11.7 ounces. That has been in line with the baked temperatures in my home oven. At market I had a little less weight on the baked PJ clone cookie.

I won't get to taste this PJ clone cookie but will hear from my daughter how her co-workers liked the PJ clone cookie.

I have looked at a lot of images of the Papa John's Mega Chocolate Chip Cookies, and have read many reviews, and your clone of the PJ cookie looks very good and very professional.

You previously mentioned to me that you did not see the workers at the PJ store actually cut the PJ cookies. I can think of one or two ways of cutting the cookie without mangling it or the pan but can you tell us how you cut your clone PJ cookies? I might also note that when I was looking at one video review of the PJ cookie, the cookie was uncut. So, apparently that is one option that is available to those who would prefer to cut the cookies themselves, maybe in different numbers of slices. An uncut cookie might also not dry out as fast, and it might also be dressed up or wrapped for gifting purposes (giant cookies are very popular as birthday gifts).

Also, can you tell us how you have been preserving the leftover cookie slices so that they don't dry out and become brittle and hard? When I was reviewing the McDonald's soft baked chocolate chip cookies, the reviews were generally quite favorable (as well as the price) but there were some complaints that at some McDonald's locations, or at certain times of day, the McDonald's cookies were dried out hard. And the McDonald's cookies contain a lot of chocolate chips. On this point, I read elsewhere that microwaving the leftover cookie slices for a brief period helps restore the leftover slices.

Your use of less Clabber Girl baking powder may be an indication that the amount of cookie dough should be reduced a bit. The PJ weight numbers are somewhat vague and indefinite so it is hard to know what amount of cookie dough comes closest to what PJ does. Most chocolate chip cookie dough recipes that I have seen tend to call for a lot of baking soda or baking powder (or a combination of both). The amount of Clabber Girl baking powder that I came up was driven mainly by the Sodium numbers and the fact that baking powder contains a lot of Sodium.

Do you suppose that PJ uses the screens and parchment paper as a way of adapting the bake of the cookies to their conveyor ovens? Conveyor ovens perform differently from a thermodynamics standpoint than a home oven or even a deck oven. Maybe it is possible to bake a PJ clone cookie in a standard home oven in the usual manner.

FYI, I estimate that the ingredients costs for the PJ clone cookie dough using the bowl residue compensation of 10% come to about $1.85. This estimate is based on local supermarket prices for most of the items and Amazon pricing for the ingredients I do not have on hand. The price I quoted does not include the price of the disposable aluminum foil pan. I suspect that most people will just use whatever baking pan they have on hand. Disposable aluminum foil pans are quite inexpensive but to get really low prices you need to buy them in bulk, by the hundreds. Maybe you can get some samples somewhere to test at market.

I have looked at a lot of images of the Papa John's Mega Chocolate Chip Cookies, and have read many reviews, and your clone of the PJ cookie looks very good and very professional.

You previously mentioned to me that you did not see the workers at the PJ store actually cut the PJ cookies. I can think of one or two ways of cutting the cookie without mangling it or the pan but can you tell us how you cut your clone PJ cookies? I might also note that when I was looking at one video review of the PJ cookie, the cookie was uncut. So, apparently that is one option that is available to those who would prefer to cut the cookies themselves, maybe in different numbers of slices. An uncut cookie might also not dry out as fast, and it might also be dressed up or wrapped for gifting purposes (giant cookies are very popular as birthday gifts).

Also, can you tell us how you have been preserving the leftover cookie slices so that they don't dry out and become brittle and hard? When I was reviewing the McDonald's soft baked chocolate chip cookies, the reviews were generally quite favorable (as well as the price) but there were some complaints that at some McDonald's locations, or at certain times of day, the McDonald's cookies were dried out hard. And the McDonald's cookies contain a lot of chocolate chips. On this point, I read elsewhere that microwaving the leftover cookie slices for a brief period helps restore the leftover slices.

Your use of less Clabber Girl baking powder may be an indication that the amount of cookie dough should be reduced a bit. The PJ weight numbers are somewhat vague and indefinite so it is hard to know what amount of cookie dough comes closest to what PJ does. Most chocolate chip cookie dough recipes that I have seen tend to call for a lot of baking soda or baking powder (or a combination of both). The amount of Clabber Girl baking powder that I came up was driven mainly by the Sodium numbers and the fact that baking powder contains a lot of Sodium.

Do you suppose that PJ uses the screens and parchment paper as a way of adapting the bake of the cookies to their conveyor ovens? Conveyor ovens perform differently from a thermodynamics standpoint than a home oven or even a deck oven. Maybe it is possible to bake a PJ clone cookie in a standard home oven in the usual manner.

FYI, I estimate that the ingredients costs for the PJ clone cookie dough using the bowl residue compensation of 10% come to about $1.85. This estimate is based on local supermarket prices for most of the items and Amazon pricing for the ingredients I do not have on hand. The price I quoted does not include the price of the disposable aluminum foil pan. I suspect that most people will just use whatever baking pan they have on hand. Disposable aluminum foil pans are quite inexpensive but to get really low prices you need to buy them in bulk, by the hundreds. Maybe you can get some samples somewhere to test at market.

Peter

Peter,

You are correct that I did not see the workers at PJ store actually cut the cookie but the worker told me the cookie is very easy to cut while it is still very warm with the tool that the worker had in his hand in my other post. At market I used either a pizza cutter or some kind of old candy cutter I had at home. What I usually did was use a screen or a pizza pan and put it on top of the cookie in the disposable aluminum pan and then flipped it and then put another screen or pizza pan on the bottom of the cookie and flipped it over again to be able to slice it. I have also used a metal pizza peel for flipping. I think an uncut cookie would be good as a gift for someone that likes chocolate chip cookies.

I am posting in my next post about how I keep the cookie slices moist. In some of my first bake attempts the cookie did dry out like one of my PJ cookies did. The first cookie I purchased at PJ we ate the whole cookie before I could try to save a slice. I think your idea of microwaving is a good one to try and restore the leftover slices.

When looking at the Nestle chocolate chip recipe or the Ghirardelli chocolate chip recipe on the back of the semi-sweet chocolate chips it only calls for 1 tsp. Baking soda for a whole recipe of chocolate chips. Since the Clabber Girl baking power has a double leavening system instead of a single one why do you think the amount of cookie dough should be reduced a little?

I would suppose that PJ uses the screens and parchment paper as a way of adapting the bake of the cookies to their conveyor ovens. I also do think conveyor ovens perform differently than a home oven or even a deck oven. It might be possible to bake a PJ clone cookie in a standard home oven in the usual manner. I did not try that.

I will see if I might be able to get some samples of disposable aluminum pans to test at market. I did purchase 3 Hefty 8” disposable aluminum pans at Walmart but I did not try them yet. They are higher in height than PJ pans.

This is how using Peter's PJ clone cookie formulation and bake was at market on Tuesday in a deck oven. As can be seen the cookie was about the same in a higher temperature oven. The top screen used was more like PJ top screen. I did use light brown sugar with Grandma's molasses instead of dark brown sugar in this attempt.

I do not know what other members look for in a really good chocolate chip cookie but I look for a cookie that stays moist for a few days if placed in a plastic bag or closed container. I just wanted to add that a piece of the PJ clone cookie made on Tuesday and eaten this morning is still very moist.

The second photo shows how much cookie batter was leftover from using a bowl residue compensation of 8%. I even tried to scrap as much batter off as I could when mixing Peter's PJ clone cookie batter.

On the one photo it can be seen how the cookie looked where the batter stuck to the top screen a little in the bake. That part of the cookie looks a little deformed.

I have some good news for those who wish to make a more economical version of the PJ clone chocolate chip cookie.

Today, courtesy of the Kroger Co., I found ingredients at my local Kroger store that, on paper, appear to very good candidates to make a PJ clone chocolate chip cookie.

First, I found a Kroger house brand of semi-sweet chocolate chips that appears to be even closer to the semi-sweet chocolate chips that PJ uses than the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips. The reason is that the Kroger semi-sweet chocolate chips contain milkfat (which, incidentally, adds a bit of cholesterol), whereas the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips do not. The Kroger brand of semi-sweet chocolate chips are arguably a bit better than the semi-sweet chocolate chips that PJ uses because the Kroger chocolate chips use real vanilla, whereas the chocolate chips that PJ uses contain artificial vanilla (vanillin). The Total Fat content of the Kroger chocolate chips is a bit lower than the Ghirardelli chocolate chips but only by a little. The Sat Fats are the same. And, overall, the Kroger product matches up a bit better with the PJ Nutrition Facts for Total Fats than the Ghirardelli product. Of course, Nutrition Facts only tell part of the story. One has to taste the various brands of semi-sweet chocolate chips to determine preferences. I mention this because even though two products have the same ingredients statements, they can taste differently because the amounts of the individual components are different. In this case, I suspect that the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips have more of a "chocolate" flavor (more unsweetened chocolate and/or cocoa butter), and a less sweet taste. The price of the Kroger semi-sweet chocolate chips? $1.78, for 12 ounces (2 cups).

Second, I found a Kroger brand of margarine that appears to be identical to the Walmart Great Value 0 Trans Fat, palm-based margarine that was previously discussed and that has started appearing in the Walmart stores. The Nutrition Facts for the two margarine products are identical. The price? $0.99. It looks like the Walmart and Kroger margarines are so cheap that there is no point in promoting or advertising those products or even providing information on those products on their websites.

Third, I found a Kroger house brand of baking powder that contains the identical ingredients as used by the Clabber Girl brand. The Nutrition Facts for the two products are identical. The price? $1.00 (marked down from $1.19). The Clabber Girl baking powder in the comparable quantity is $1.79.

Finally, Kroger has the Gold Medal bleached/malted/enriched all-purpose flour on sale at $2.19 for five pounds. The Kroger house brand for a bleached/malted/enriched all-purpose flour costs $1.89 for five pounds but it contains less malting. That might lead to slightly reduced cookie coloration.

While I was at Kroger, I rechecked the various chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip cookie mixes, and refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough products sold at that store. Virtually all of those products list the flour and, in some case, sugar, as the predominant ingredient. This should not come as any surprise. Chocolate chips are expensive. Flour is cheap. And it doesn't matter whether we are talking about the best known and most respected brands or the bargain/value brands. I found only three chocolate chip cookie products that listed chocolate chips first. Interestingly, one of those products is a Kroger product called "THE Truly AWESOME homestyle chocolate chip cookie". Its label is a much cleaner label than most of the other chocolate chip cookies that I looked at, with far fewer chemicals and no hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats. Just basic ingredients.

Another chocolate chip cookie that I looked at that had the chocolate chips as the first ingredient is the Pepperidge Farm Double Chocolate Nantucket chocolate chunk cookie. The point I am making here is that chocolate chip cookies that have the chocolate chips as the dominant ingredient are few and far between. In some of the stores I visited, there were none.

As I checked out the ingredients statements for the various chocolate chip cookies, I looked to see how much leavening agent was used. In several cases the leavening agent was said to be 2% or less in terms of its predominance in the products where the leavening agent was used. My PJ clone cookie dough formulation calls for 1.5% baking powder. So, it appears that I am at least in the ballpark. Whether less should be used is hard to say at this point. Sodium is present in every ingredient used to make the PJ cookie, even in the vanilla. As a result, there is no way that I can think of to calculate how much Sodium is allocatable to the baking powder so as to be able to know how much of that ingredient to use.

I used what ingredients I had, as opposed to getting the exact ingredients you suggested. First attempt I cooked at 495, 10 minutes. The top corner edges were a bit burnt - just the absolute tip of the corner, so looking at it from the top as it sat in the pan, it looked a lot worse than it really was. Barely noticeable when eating. Second attempt I cooked at 475, and it was a little better.

It was really good, the chocolate chips stood out more than the real cookie, Pete described a difference between 2 brands earlier that I had not considered to be a factor (tasting more chocolate vs sweetness). I used semi-sweet chips from Costco. For improvements I will try to match more exact ingredients to what you and Pete suggest, but for what I made I was quite pleased.

It was really good, the chocolate chips stood out more than the real cookie, Pete described a difference between 2 brands earlier that I had not considered to be a factor (tasting more chocolate vs sweetness). I used semi-sweet chips from Costco. For improvements I will try to match more exact ingredients to what you and Pete suggest, but for what I made I was quite pleased.

Charg,

I am glad you thought your PJ clone cookies was really good. I agree that the chocolate chips stand out more than a PJ cookie. I have used two different types of chocolate chips and really can't tell the difference in the taste of the PJ clone cookie with either type of chocolate chips.

I agree that the chocolate chips stand out more than a PJ cookie. I have used two different types of chocolate chips and really can't tell the difference in the taste of the PJ clone cookie with either type of chocolate chips.

Norma,

As you know, PJ is using commodity/foodservice sources for its margarine and leavening, and most likely for the more prosaic ingredients like sugar, brown sugar, salt, flavorings and colorings. So, I would imagine that they are doing something along the same lines with the semi-sweet chocolate chips. Of all the ingredients used to make the PJ Mega Chocolate Chip Cookie, the most important ingredient in my opinion is the chocolate chips. The chocolate chips are at the heart of every chocolate chip cookie. But that doesn't mean that PJ is going to use chocolate chips from Scharffen Berger (now owned by Hershey), or Callebaut or Guittard or Jacques Torres. PJ's is not trying to make the ultimate chocolate chip cookie. They are just trying to add a novelty item to their pizza line.

I think the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips are a good choice for cloning purposes because they are readily available at retail and at a price that is not much more than the Nestle and Hershey semi-sweet chocolate chips. The Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips also come pretty close to meeting the PJ description of the chocolate chips they use. And Ghirardelli has a long heritage. It has been around for 161 years. Since we don't know where PJ is sourcing their chocolate chips, it is hard to conclude that the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips are superior to what PJ is using. But, if they are, that should be noticeable by the veteran chocolate chip cookie eater.

As you know, PJ is using commodity/foodservice sources for its margarine and leavening, and most likely for the more prosaic ingredients like sugar, brown sugar, salt, flavorings and colorings. So, I would imagine that they are doing something along the same lines with the semi-sweet chocolate chips. Of all the ingredients used to make the PJ Mega Chocolate Chip Cookie, the most important ingredient in my opinion is the chocolate chips. The chocolate chips are at the heart of every chocolate chip cookie. But that doesn't mean that PJ is going to use chocolate chips from Scharffen Berger (now owned by Hershey), or Callebaut or Guittard or Jacques Torres. PJ's is not trying to make the ultimate chocolate chip cookie. They are just trying to add a novelty item to their pizza line.

I think the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips are a good choice for cloning purposes because they are readily available at retail and at a price that is not much more than the Nestle and Hershey semi-sweet chocolate chips. The Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips also come pretty close to meeting the PJ description of the chocolate chips they use. And Ghirardelli has a long heritage. It has been around for 161 years. Since we don't know where PJ is sourcing their chocolate chips, it is hard to conclude that the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips are superior to what PJ is using. But, if they are, that should be noticeable by the veteran chocolate chip cookie eater.

Peter

Peter,

Yes, I do know that PJ is using commodity/foodservice sources for its margarine and leavening, and most likely for the prosaic ingredients like sugar, salt, flavorings and colorings. I can understand why you would imagine they are doing something along the same lines with the semi-sweet chocolate chips.

I see you recommend the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips are a good choice for cloning purposes. 161 to be around is long time. I will purchase some more Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips after I finish the Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips I purchased on sale yesterday.